A good VPN application is hard to come by. A good free VPN app is very hard to come by.
What do we mean by “good”? Well, how about one that won’t log your data and sell it in the internet black market for starters?
While, save for verified independent audits, there may not be many ways to prove that they don’t do just, we have seen time and time again that those that pay lip service to such claims and only have them for marketing purposes routinely get exposed.
When we last looked at VPN apps you could take advantage of and use on your devices, Kenyans were on the cusp of new never-experienced-before realities of possible curtailment of free speech in the wake of an election – the 2017 elections. Since then, there have been many developments and whatever we recommended back then is either dead, as is the case of Opera VPN and Opera Max or has even evolved as is the case with our recommendation that piggy-backed on the power of the Tor network.
That means that while we can still recommend the good old Tunnel Bear, you will still be limited by its bandwidth caps for those that don’t plan to go ahead and subscribe to it. And you will have to sacrifice quite a lot dealing with annoying pop-ups if you choose to use the built-in VPN features of Opera’s mobile apps where you can find everything that was Opera VPN folded into. And a Samsung-driven solution, which is what Opera Max has since become – Samsung Max – may not work or be what you are looking for for your non-Samsung Galaxy smartphone. Cruel world, eh?
However, if you are looking to take advantage of the various content offerings being made available at this time when everyone is being encouraged to stay at home and do everything from there – work, learn, communicate, whatever – or just stay safe, then is worth a look at.
What’s better is that unlike before when users were capped at a monthly bandwidth of 2GB, for the free tier, that has now been increased to 10GB. Even better, the app will still let you go on and on even after you max out the 10GB bandwidth before it resets at the start of the following month of use. The only difference is that after maxing the 10GB bandwidth limit, one loses the privilege of being able to choose the location of the server they are using to connect.
Oh, and this change is permanent. How about that?
The one thing I like about hide.me? You don’t need to sign up to use it straight away.
If you are interested in paying for a VPN app, hide.me, with its “on offer” €5 per month (€13 regular – when it is not “on offer”) still won’t be our top pick. There are a few other options worth exploring in addition to whatever we have recommended in the past that is still available.
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